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If you do an Internet search for “chattering Spandaus,” you only get 89 hits, but that stock phrase has become synonymous with World War I aviation. Generations of moviegoers have seen the image: the leering Teutonic ace, hard eyes gleaming behind squared-off goggles above the blazing muzzles. The fact is that there is no such […]

This is going to sound trite, because it IS trite. It is me, representing the old fashioned, hardcore America, once again reminding the Nation that Memorial Day is not about hot dogs, baseball games, or making cannonball splashes in the pool. Memorial Day is about white stone monuments reaching to the horizon. Each with a […]

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While preparing an article celebrating the Navy’s 100th anniversary, we stumbled across the photo below. It reminded us what Memorial Day is all about, something we can’t forget. The photo had a profound effect on us and we thought we’d be remiss if we didn’t share it with our readers. by Budd Davisson Editor-in-chief, […]

Even in these days of the Internet, sending paper mail by airplane remains a major part of everyday life. The early efforts to build upon airmail and experiment with rocket mail, however, never quite caught on. There had been earlier efforts at home and abroad, usually over short distances and using handcrafted rockets. It all came […]

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On January 23, 2010, a retired Air Force officer died in San Diego, California, age 96. His name was Kermit A. Tyler. For most of his life, he was one of the least understood players in the Pearl Harbor tragedy. On December 7, 1941, Tyler was the officer who told radar operators plotting a large […]

An old workhorse goes back to work We only have roads into town three months of the year, while all the lakes and rivers are frozen. Otherwise the only way into Norman Wells and many of the other communities around us is by airplane. Usually float planes. That’s why I had the Bellanca CH-300 restored. […]

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March 20, 1971, was not a good day for American and Vietnamese forces engaged in Operation Lam Son 719. Originally billed as the operation that would prove the success of “Vietnamization,” that the South Vietnamese Army and Marines were capable of taking on North Vietnamese main force units successfully, the incursion into Laos was becoming […]

1917 (France) — Lt. Col. William “Billy” Mitchell becomes the first United States Army officer to fly over German lines. 1946 (USSR) — First flights of the first Soviet designed and built jet aircraft, MiG-9 and Yak-15, are made. A member of the company test team for the Yak-15, Olga Yamschikova, is probably the first […]

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Roosevelt Wasted No Time Being the First Prez to Fly The very name of Theodore Roosevelt brings up an image of a man of limitless energy, always seeking new adventures. In 1910, he added another one to his list when he flew in an airplane. Roosevelt started life as a sickly child, but he didn’t […]

Sneaking Up On America … Again Pearl Harbor was the first. The American West Coast was to be next for a sneak bacteriological attack. Then, bomb New York City and obliterate the Panama Canal. According to the Japanese High Command, that was all to be accomplished early in the conflict—and they were deadly serious about […]